“The Eagle has landed.”
We’d been waiting for those 4 thrilling words. 
In those heady days, we all had a good case of moon fever. We had primed ourselves for perhaps man’s greatest accomplishment. 
We had moon fever all right, and the cure was black and white grainy shots of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin setting foot on the moon. They did so July 20, 1969 at a place called Tranquility Base, the name of the site where the lunar excursion module set down.
At 10:56 pm EDT, Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, made his quote heard round the universe: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 
More than a billion people were listening. Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.
Where were you when it happened?
I watched the grainy black and white images in my parent’s living room, a moment no one wanted to miss. For 8 exciting days the world watched the mission from launch at Cape Kennedy July 16, 1969 to the moon and to splashdown in the North Pacific Ocean July 24, where the USS Hornet recovered the command module, Columbia. 
For 8 days a spellbound world put aside its differences and watched as man set foot on a heavenly body. One that has long given us tides that I describe as planetary breathing, an in-and-out exchange of water that floods marshes, turns rivers brackish, and helps keep the seas stocked with life. 
We have a lunar-rich culture. Savannah-born Johnny Mercer wrote “Moon River,” which takes its name from a river down Savannah way named “Moon.” 
Werewolves and full moons made their way into novels and movies, and Michael Jackson perfected his moon walk. 
That wafer-thin silver disk enriches our language. Lunatic refers to lunacy, which translates to insanity. Moonshine needs no introduction nor does that bawdy act when some foolhardy soul drops his pants and “moons” some hapless soul. (A good time for a wasp to make a lunar landing of its own. It won’t be tranquil.) The infamous RC Cola and Moon Pie give us further examples of the moon’s influence. 
Next time you hear a football player has torn his meniscus, know that “meniscus” comes from the moon. The list goes on.
That first moon walk was the prescription a fractious, war and racially torn country needed. 
There’s no topping man on the moon, even though other major news events went down in 1969. The Beatles made their last public performance. The Manson cult murdered 5 people. Woodstock attracted over 350,000 rockers, and the Vietnam War raged on. For 8 days, though, the world focused on a tin can hurtling through space to the moon. 
From a boy with a telescope to now, I stare at the moon, and I think about the 12 men who walked on the moon. Including extreme heroism in war, those 12 are among the world’s most courageous men. 
I hope we’ll go back or even better send a crew to Mars. We could use a great, long diversion in a world that I’ve already described as fractious, a word Mom used to describe ill-tempered children.
 Going to the moon or Mars? That would be good medicine for this world.